For many people, a great deal of time is physically spent located in one's vehicle, even if the vehicle is not in motion and is stationary. It may be necessary to do a variety of tasks that may be accomplished while located in a vehicle. For example, such tasks may include checking one's email or messages on one's smartphone or other computing device, making and receiving phone calls, eating, sleeping, and engaging in a variety of tasks within one's vehicle. In addition to the above, many people spend an inordinate amount of time in their work vehicles as part of their occupational duties and obligations. For example, police officers or other law enforcement usually spend a great deal of time within their police vehicles because of their occupational obligations and assignments. When police officers are not driving their police vehicles, they are often found parked in various locations, during the day time and the night time. Such locations may include located on or adjacent to roadways and highways, parking lots, residential neighborhoods, and a variety of venues and locations. Furthermore, it is noted that other working professionals may also spend a great deal of time located within their vehicles, including security officers, public safety, construction, roadside assistance, and service repair professionals.
In general, when someone is working or concentrating on a task while located in their vehicle, he or she is not aware of his or her surroundings. This also means that a person inside the vehicle is probably not aware when other individuals are walking near or approaching his or her vehicle. If someone is approaching a stationary vehicle with an intent to harm the operator or occupants within the stationary vehicle, it may be easily accomplished because the occupants of the stationary vehicle usually have no warning and no means of detecting the movement of these oncoming individuals, particularly at night.
In the case of police officers, there have been too many tragedies that involve fatalities and serious bodily injury to the police officers that have occurred when these officers were simply parked within their police vehicles and were not aware of their outside surroundings or were otherwise focused on other tasks, and someone with an intention to harm these police officers, is able to walk up to the police vehicles undetected and open fire using guns and other weapons to attack the police officers within their vehicles.
Because such tragic situations are so frequently occurring to police officers, and also to many other types of individuals while located in their stationary vehicles, there is an immediate need for a system and apparatus that may be used to monitor an area around a vehicle and to alert the occupants located within a vehicle when a potential intruder approaches the vehicle.